


fun with dick and jane

by Wildehack (tyleet)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, OT5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 20:19:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15372549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyleet/pseuds/Wildehack
Summary: “I NEED DICK,” Ronan yelled up at them, sounding deeply embarrassed about it.





	fun with dick and jane

**Author's Note:**

> @PhilippaMoss asked me to subvert the trope "ye olde curative dick." I believe i have done so. The OT5 is my fault. ;)

Three days after Ronan failed to wake up, Opal showed up at 300 Fox Way, demanding a court assembly. Lucky for her it was Christmas Eve, which meant Blue had come home to see her mom, which meant that Richard Campbell Gansey III had come back to see Blue, and Adam had come back because the dorms closed over the break and Gansey was his ride, so the court was already pretty much assembled. (Henry Cheng sent his regrets from Prague, where he had gone to see his own mom, but he’d be back in Henrietta by New Years, chapsticked up and ready to go. Blue, for one, was looking forward to midnight.)

Opal did her best to explain the problem--the Greywaren had wandered too deep into someone else’s dream and gotten stuck, and she couldn’t go into the dreaming world by herself without Ronan to take her, so clearly some kind of magical assistance was required--but she was a trifle upset, especially after having walked all the way from Singer’s Falls in her awful, human-shaped boots, which she promptly tore off and threw at Maura’s couch in a temper.

“Well,” Maura said calmly, going to get some Aveeno hand lotion for Opal’s abused hooves, “Looks like you’re having an adventure before dinner.”

“Be back by five,” Calla put in from the other room. “Or we’re not saving you any spiked eggnog.” Her voice turned sly and knowing. “And trust me, kids, you’re gonna want it.”

“Why does this feel just like old times,” Blue grumbled as they all piled into the Pig, but it wasn’t quite true. For one thing, if it were just like old times, Noah would be squeezed into the backseat between her and Opal, playing with her hair, or laughing at Opal’s Aveeno-slicked hooves, or something. A familiar pang of grief went through her. For another, they’d know what was going on with Ronan already, because he wouldn’t have been ducking their phone calls for months, and he might have told Adam, at least, what his plan was. She wasn’t sure what had broken them up, exactly, but she knew it had been ugly.

Adam was staring out the passenger window, his jaw clenched tight.

That much at least wasn’t too different from old times, she thought, and sighed.

When they got to the Barns, Opal led them to Ronan’s body--it felt awful to say, _Ronan’s body_ , like he was dead, but the thing laid out on the grass next to the still ornamental fountain sure didn’t look like Ronan. It was visibly empty; Ronan was out. It reminded her, horribly, of Persephone.

“Shit,” Gansey said quietly. He knelt down and took Ronan’s pulse, which was unnecessary because they could all see he was still breathing. He shouldn’t have been, given that it was December and there had been snow on the ground for weeks in Henrietta, but the season at the Barns was whatever Ronan wanted it to be, and she guessed right now it was late summer, or thereabouts.

“He grew out his hair,” Blue said without entirely meaning to, because it was true. She would have never suspected that his hair would curl when left to its own devices, but it plainly was. With some more time, Ronan might even have little brown ringlets.

“What was he trying to do?” Adam asked Opal, his voice sharp.

“Find something that was lost,” Opal said unhelpfully, giving Adam an unimpressed look.

“That’s not the right question,” Blue said, shivering. “The right question is--what do _we_ do about it?”

Gansey rubbed a hand over his eyes. “All right,” he said levelly, turning to Opal, who was more or less on his eye level. “Did you have a reason for coming to get us in particular, or did you just want some adults around?”  
  
Blue was about to protest that the adults had all stayed at Fox Way, but remembered that they’d all had their eighteenth birthdays since the last time they were all together. She felt her cheeks heat a little bit.  
  
“She’s not a child,” Adam said, although really it was more fair to say that Opal had been a child for a very long time.  
  
“He needs a lifeline,” Opal said to Gansey, shooting Adam a nasty look. “The court is his lifeline.”  
  
Gansey waited a polite beat. “Any idea as to specifics?” he asked, when it became apparent she was finished talking.  
  
Opal shrugged.  
  
Gansey sighed, and stood up. “Okay,” he said. “Adam, I hate to ask, but do you think you could--?” He gestured at the ornamental fountain, currently a still pool of water.  
  
Adam nodded stiffly, and sat down at the edge of the fountain, so he could look into the water.  
  
“I’ll help,” Blue said, and sat down right beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder. Adam gave her a brief smile of thanks, then exhaled heavily. He went unnaturally still, focused on the water.  
  
Blue glanced down at the water herself, and was shocked to find that there was actually something there. She peered at it more directly, tightening her grip on Adam’s shoulder.  
  
“Jane,” Gansey said, suspicious, but it was too late.  
  
The vision had already swallowed Blue up.  
  
She found herself standing on a desolate country road, still clutching Adam’s arm, a vast pink dusk wheeling above them. There was nothing else to see for miles. Just the pale road stretching endlessly ahead and behind them.  
  
“Don’t let go of me,” Adam warned, preemptively taking her hand. “I think something bad’ll happen if you let go of me.”

“I won’t let go,” Blue promised, squeezing his hand. “Where are we? Where’s Ronan?”  
  
Adam nodded at the road up ahead, and she could see something dark against the pale dirt. Carefully, still holding hands, they walked together up to it.  
  
It was a pothole.

Or it looked like a pothole, only she couldn’t tell how deep it went. The darkness yawned on and on downward, like they’d found a trapdoor headed straight to hell. Adam got down on his knees, and she awkwardly joined him, her fingers white-knuckled with the strain of holding on.  
  
“RONAN,” Adam yelled down into the pothole, bending so close over it that she was scared he might fall in. “RONAN LYNCH.”  
  
The sound echoed down for a long while, and then there was nothing.  
  
He gave her a brief agonized look, and Blue leaned dangerously over the hole in the ground herself, cupping her free hand against her mouth. “RONAN,” she screamed, “ANSWER US, ASSHOLE.”

They waited another long while, and the bottom of Blue’s stomach dropped out. She could hear Adam breathing unevenly, and his pulse was throbbing in his wrist.  
  
But then, very faintly, they heard a voice call up to them. “ _Maggot?_ ”

Adam exhaled shakily.  
  
“WE’RE HERE,” she shouted, heart beating fast with joy. “WE’RE HERE TO RESCUE YOU.” She looked frantically around for--well, for rope. Opal had said Ronan needed a lifeline, but there was nothing like that nearby. She could try ripping up her shirt and braiding it into a rope--that kind of thing worked in fairytales all the time--but there was no way she could do it without letting go of Adam’s hand.

“ _Aren’t you--a little short--for a stormtrooper_?” Ronan called up from the depths of wherever the hell he was, because he was first and foremost an asshole. She sniffled a little bit.  
  
“HOW DO WE GET YOU OUT?” Adam shouted into the hole.  
  
“ _Adam_?” Worryingly, this time Ronan sounded fainter than before, like he was moving further away from them.  
  
“HOW DO WE HELP YOU?” Adam repeated, squeezing her hand hard.  
  
There was a terrible pause, and then--  
  
“ _Dick_ ,” Ronan shouted back.  
  
Blue blinked. “WHAT?”  
  
“ _I need dick_ ,” Ronan yelled, sounding deeply embarrassed about it. “ _It’s a magical energy thing_.”  
  
The world started to shudder worryingly around the edges, and she and Adam shared an alarmed look.  
  
“THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN,” Adam shouted.

“ _What the fuck do you think it means_ ,” Ronan yelled back, which was extremely poor timing, because that’s when the world flickered out, and Blue found herself lying on her back in the grass outside Ronan’s childhood home, gasping like the wind had just been knocked out of her.  
  
She rolled onto her side, and found Gansey on his knees, pale with concern, helping Adam up off the ground. “Can you see okay?” he asked Adam, getting an arm under his shoulders. “I just wanted to shock you out of it, but you clipped your head on the way down.”  
  
“I’m fine,” Adam said, and confirmed that he could tell three fingers from two, and that he regrettably knew who the president was.  
  
“You alright, Jane?” Gansey asked, looking at her with blatant devotion on his face.  
  
“I’m fine,” she said, and got up to her feet to prove it. “Ronan’s not, though.” She shuddered a little at the thought of being trapped that far underground, in--whatever kind of a place that was. The ley line itself, maybe. You could imagine that as a kind of road.  
  
Opal didn’t look surprised, but stared silently at Blue like the fey thing she really was--nothing like a child at all.  
  
“What did you see,” Gansey asked sharply.  
  
“He’s stuck,” Adam said, shaking Gansey off. He cast an uneasy look at Ronan’s body. “He told us what the--lifeline is.”  
  
“I don’t think he was serious,” Blue said, although it was Ronan, so he might have been serious. “You think he was being serious?”  
  
Adam reddened.  
  
Gansey scowled at them both. “You’re both being awfully mysterious, and when my best friend’s life is on the line, I don’t appreciate delicacy.”

“Dick,” she said, the back of her neck heating up. “He said, um. He said he needed dick. Something to do with magical energy.”  
  
Gansey looked impatient. “Is that all?”  
  
She glanced up to find Adam beet red and staring at the grass.  
  
“Oh my god,” Gansey said, with an incredulous little laugh, “You filthy perverts.” Calmly he walked over to Ronan’s body and knelt down. He pressed a hand to Ronan’s chest, and waited, expectant.  
  
“ _Oh_ ,” Blue said, abruptly feeling stupid.  
  
“That’s not traditional,” Opal said, crossing her arms over her chest.  
  
“Well, who am I to mess with tradition?” Gansey asked with an eyeroll, and then he bent down, cupped Ronan’s face in his hands, and gave him a very traditional kiss on the mouth.

For a moment there was just stillness, and then Blue became aware of a humming sound, originating from nowhere in particular, and a little yellow glow, like a ball of light--like Tinkerbell in Peter Pan, or like the gentle glow of the mermaid’s voice in The Little Mermaid--made itself visible in Ronan’s chest. Instinctively Blue shifted towards Adam, and he reached blindly for her hand.  
  
Gansey didn’t stop the kiss, keeping his eyes firmly closed. The little ball of light moved slowly up from Ronan’s chest to his throat, and Ronan gasped against Gansey’s mouth as he woke up, his hands curling over Gansey’s shoulders.  
  
“Don’t stop,” Blue blurted out in a panic, because the little yellow ball was still slowly traveling, now plainly glowing in Ronan’s mouth. She wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen, but she could tell whatever it was wasn’t done. Even Gansey--her own Dick Gansey the third, _god_ \--should only die with a kiss just the once.  
  
Gansey didn’t let go, frowning a bit with concentration. Ronan brought a hand up to Gansey’s jaw, and coaxed his mouth open. For an instant the light flared between them, and the air in the yard went hot as Hades. Ronan stuck his tongue into Gansey’s mouth, and the heat dropped away. Adam squeezed her hand hard, and then Gansey swallowed the ball of light, and broke away from Ronan, gasping for breath.  
  
Ronan smiled brilliantly up at him, for an instant looking softer and younger than Blue had ever seen him--the way she imagined he must have looked when Niall Lynch was still alive. “Stage two: complete,” Ronan said, his voice hoarse with either disuse or triumph, she wasn’t sure which. Opal made a small, joyful noise, and threw herself at him.

“You absolute _jerk_ ,” Blue burst out, and followed Opal’s lead. Gansey caught her with the ease of long familiarity, and she kissed him briefly on the jaw, just because she could.  
  
“Get _off_ me,” Ronan said, trying to scoot away from her, but he was still tangled up in Gansey and Opal, who was tucked under his arm and scolding him in tree Latin. Blue punched him hard in this opposite shoulder, and he yelped. “Sargent, you psycho!”  
  
“Why didn’t you just ask us for help,” Blue demanded, and then she hugged him tightly.  
  
Ronan made an unhappy sound in her grasp.  
  
“She has a point,” Adam said coolly, and Blue opened her eyes to see Adam had stayed with his back to the ornamental fountain, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Hey, Parrish,” Ronan said. It was such a pathetic attempt at sounding cool that Blue let him wriggle away this time. He made it all the way up to his knees, Opal still clinging to him and chattering away, before he swayed visibly. Not eating for three days clearly affected even the great Ronan Lynch.  
  
“Well?” Adam asked. His face was hard. “What was so important that you almost got yourself killed?”  
  
Unexpectedly, Gansey answered him, his voice low and wondering. “Noah,” he said.  
  
Blue’s heart skipped a beat. “What?”  
  
“I--I think it’s Noah,” Gansey said, touching a hand uncertainly to his own breastbone. He looked to Ronan for confirmation. “Right?”  
  
Ronan looked deeply relieved. “Yeah,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if it would work, but--yeah.”  
  
“What do you mean it’s Noah,” Blue demanded. “I thought Noah was dead.”  
  
“Noah was always dead,” Ronan sneered, like she wasn’t perfectly well aware of that.

“He’s not dead now,” Gansey said, still soft and distracted. “He’s--sleeping, I think.”  
  
Ronan nodded. “I’ve got a body waiting for him,” he said, matter of fact, like it wasn’t the creepiest thing to ever emerge from his mouth. “Dreamed it up last month.”

Blue stared at him. “You mean--”  
  
“I mean we just saved Noah Czerny’s life,” Ronan told her, and got unsteadily to his feet. Opal hung onto his hand. “Fuck. _Fuck_. I’m starving.”  
  
“That’s what happens when you put yourself in a coma for three days,” Adam said sharply, but he got up and made sure Ronan didn’t fall over.  
  
Despite his protesting, Ronan didn’t lead them into the kitchen. Instead, they followed him up to one of the bedrooms, although Opal refused to come in.  
  
Noah was asleep on the bed, as empty and wrong-looking as Ronan had been earlier. A corpse that just happened to be breathing.  
  
He’d had it for a month, he’d said, and who knew how many tries it had taken him to pull the right thing out of the dream. Blue felt a little sick.  
  
“ _Jesus,_  Ronan,” Adam said, and the way he said it was almost enough to make Blue feel like she was intruding. Almost.  
  
“Okay,” Ronan said, and gestured at Gansey. “Have at it.”  
  
“This,” Gansey said thoughtfully, “is quite the day for kissing people who aren’t my girlfriend.”  
  
Blue squeezed his hand. “I don’t mind,” she said. Gansey smiled at her. He knew she didn’t.  
  
“Why me, anyway?” he asked Ronan. “Why couldn’t you do it?”  
  
Ronan gave a sulky little shrug. “You’re the king,” he said finally. “The king’s always a healer.”  
  
“Huh,” Gansey said, and sat down on the bed. “What’s that mean?”  
  
“None of your business,” Ronan said--irrationally, in Blue’s opinion, but Gansey just sighed.  
  
“Here goes,” he said, and bent down to gently kiss Noah Czerny awake. They all watched the little glowing ball course down Gansey’s throat, then hop over into Noah’s mouth. The body instantly took on a rosier, more lifelike hue, and Noah sighed, long and wistful. Gansey slowly sat up, but Noah didn’t open his eyes.  
  
Maybe it’s gone wrong, she thought, frozen. Maybe Ronan really couldn’t find Noah’s soul on the ley line--but he’s been dead too long, and it won’t take. Maybe it won’t work if the body’s a dream-thing, and not really real.  
  
“Noah,” Gansey said, and he said it in his king’s voice. The voice that might as well be saying _Glendower, arise._  “Wake up.”

Noah blinked twice, and then sucked in a deep lungful of air. He turned to look at them all, a vaguely surprised expression on his face. There was a scar where his smudginess should be, vivid and red.  
  
“Oh,” he said, and he was exactly the Noah she remembered. Her heart gave a savage ache. “Oh, hi, guys.”  
  
There was an ugly little hitch of breath from Ronan, exactly like he’d burst into tears, but no one paid any attention because they were all crowding around Noah, touching him and talking to him and doing their level best to make sure he was real.  
  
“Oh god,” Blue said after a while, her own face wet with tears, “I do want that damned spiked eggnog.”  
  
“Merry fucking Christmas,” Ronan said sarcastically, like he _hadn’t_ nearly killed himself traveling down into what Blue refused to think of as the depths of hell in order to bring them back the best present anybody could possibly ask for. She punched him in the shoulder again, and he flicked her in the forehead in retaliation.

“Hey,” Noah said, sounding a little shocked. “I’m hungry.”  
  
“Thank _fuck,_ ” Ronan said, and held out an imperious hand to Adam, who gave him a dark look before helping him back up onto his feet.  
  
The three of them who hadn’t just been raised from the dead or recently in a coma helped Ronan and Noah down to the kitchen. Adam and Gansey took an inventory of the cupboards, and decided the only thing it was possible to make out of the frankly bizarre contents was pancakes. Blue tried to stop Opal--who had emerged as soon as it was plain that Noah was a person and not a corpse--from feeding a starving and gullible Noah whole limes and bottles of fish sauce and unpeeled garlic cloves, and Ronan laughed and dared him to do it, and wound up eating a raw garlic clove himself and then almost puking it up. They ate pancakes in rounds, and no-one successfully stopped Opal from pouring fish sauce on Noah’s short stack, and it wasn’t just the first time they’d all been together since Noah died the second time, it wasn’t just the first reunion they’d had since graduation, and it wasn’t even complete, because Henry was still in Prague, but it was--well, _God_ , it was Christmas, wasn’t it?  
  
They left the dishes sitting out and shuffled into the living room, where everyone except Opal tried to sit somewhere where they could be touching Noah a little bit, just for the shock of not finding him cold as the grave.  
  
Blue wound up sitting on the floor in front of the couch with Gansey, brushing Noah’s ankle with her toes. Gansey, whose arms were considerably longer than hers, was leaning towards Noah and was companionably bumping Noah’s hip with his elbow.  
  
“Gansey,” Blue said, and the arm around her shoulders tightened.  
  
“Jane?”  
  
“I wish Henry were here.”  
  
He kissed her, very sweet and light--his third kiss of the day, and the least magical, but Blue’s undisputed favorite. “Me too,” he murmured to her, like it was a secret.

“Hey, Ronan,” she called, twisting around in Gansey’s arms.  
  
Ronan had his head in Noah’s lap, where he was permitting Noah to play with his short brown curls, looking more exhausted than anyone who’d just woken up from a three-day coma ought to look. Adam was sitting on the other end of the couch, stretched out so his feet were just brushing Noah’s leg, a complicated expression on his face. Opal had wandered off to sleep about an hour ago. “What,” Ronan rasped.  
  
“You used Gansey’s first name,” she said. “In that other place.”  
  
“Yeah? And?”  
  
“And,” she said, ignoring Adam’s obvious wince, “At first Adam and I didn’t get what you meant.”  
  
Ronan stared at her for a beat, then started choking with laughter.  
  
Adam threw a pillow at Ronan, and then at her for good measure.  
  
“Were you gonna dick me back into health?” Ronan asked gleefully, clutching the pillow to his chest.  
  
“I hate you,” Adam said, and sunk down into the cushions.  
  
“I think it shows loyalty and dedication,” Noah said, patting Adam’s ankle. A smile tugged at his mouth, heartbreakingly real. “And also, you’re a sick man.”  
  
“Blue thought that’s what he meant, too!”  
  
“She’s a sick fuck, too,” Ronan said, still laughing. “We’re all feminists here.”  
  
Adam groaned.  
  
Ronan threw the pillow back at him.

“Shit-stirrer,” Gansey whispered into her ear.   
  
“In five minutes, they’ll go outside to talk,” Blue whispered back, contented.

Five minutes later, Adam went into the kitchen to make popcorn. Ronan followed barely thirty seconds later, and they heard the screen door open and shut.  
  
She and Gansey got up on the couch, setting Noah squarely between them. “Well, living boy,” she said. “What do you want to do next?”  
  
Noah smiled at her. “I don’t know,” he said. “What do living people do on a Tuesday night?”  
  
“It’s not Tuesday,” Gansey protested, his arm hooked around the back of the couch, bracketing Noah and Blue both. “It’s Christmas Eve.”  
  
“Oh,” Noah said. “It is? I thought you guys were joking, earlier. It’s like, summer out there.”  
  
Blue tucked herself into Noah’s shoulder, and Noah pressed a hot, awkward kiss to the crown of her head. It was about fifty percent less graceful than it used to be when he was dead. Blue loved it.  
  
“So let’s watch a Christmas special,” Noah said, and Gansey went for the remote.  
  
“I thought you were Jewish,” Blue said.  
  
Noah shrugged. “I still like claymation.”  
  
The TV was apparently a dream thing, too, because the closest thing they could find to a Christmas special was Hocus Pocus.  
  
“Dead boys coming back to life,” Blue noted. “Too soon?”

  
“Nah,” Noah said, and tipped his head back into Gansey’s arm. “I love Hocus Pocus.”  
  
Ronan and Adam came back in about halfway through the movie, although no one actually made popcorn.

“Sweet Jesus,” Ronan said. “Get a room.” 

Blue dragged herself away from her study of Noah’s neck with an effort. Noah shivered, and Gansey ran a soothing hand down over his ribs. “ _You’re_ one to talk,” she said, since it was extremely obvious that Ronan had been recently and enthusiastically kissed.  
  
“Yeah,” Adam said, flushed red, “Well.”  
  
“Listen,” Gansey said, with a practical air. “Noah has just recently come back from seven years of being mostly dead, and one year of being really dead. This is, like, an affirmation of life kind of a thing. Also,” he said pointedly, “Adam’s the only person in this room I haven’t made out with today.”  
  
There was an expectant pause, and Adam cleared his throat once, then twice, as he gave Ronan a long, searching look. “Can’t have that,” he said, after he’d found whatever he was looking for.  
  
“Perverts,” Ronan said damningly, and flung himself down on the couch next to Gansey. “C’mere,” he said to Noah, and Noah sighed happily and leaned over Gansey to reach for him.  
  
“Oh god,” Gansey said, breathing out sharply through his teeth.  
  
Adam came and sat beside Blue, still looking stunned.  
  
“You know,” he said to her carefully, “I really didn’t think this was what was gonna happen today.”  
  
“Me neither,” Blue told him, her heart beating too-fast in her chest. She gave him a cautious smile. “You gonna kiss me, or what?”  
  
Adam kissed her. It was almost as lovely as she’d thought it might be, back when she thought Adam was her true love.  
  
“Here’s to living,” he whispered against her mouth.

“L'chaim,” Noah said faintly, and she laughed until Adam kissed her again.  
  
She really believed, right then, that it was all going to work out okay.

**Author's Note:**

> All feedback is greatly appreciated, even for crackfic ;)


End file.
